


Fed

by swamplamp



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Externalized homophobia, Infidelity maybe?, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, a super shitty marriage, canon retelling up to s02e10 "This Is Not For Tears", closeted gay Tom Wambsgans, dumbasses being dumbasses, zero chill Tom Wambsgans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:54:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22589728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swamplamp/pseuds/swamplamp
Summary: And Greg was hungry for it. He was hungry in a way that Shiv never was, so Tom fed him.
Relationships: Greg Hirsch/Tom Wambsgans, Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Tom Wambsgans
Comments: 21
Kudos: 243





	Fed

**Author's Note:**

> As a warning, much of this revolves around a character's repression of self and the harmful thoughts and actions that come with it. DM if you need more deets before jumping into this.
> 
> Also, there's a Schitt's Creek reference in this. And The Devil Wears Prada reference. Warning? Disclaimer? You decide!

In the beginning, Tom woke up at half past five o’clock every morning, regardless of the day of the week or the position of the sun. Slipping out of bed was easy, because he rarely ever needed to worry about waking up Shiv. Shiv was never a cuddler; she didn’t care for his snoring and he always ran a little too hot at night.

In the morning, he took a shower in the half bathroom down the hall. He shaved and brushed his teeth. He got dressed.

After that, he bounded over to the living room to let Mondale out of his pet pen and feed him a little bit. 

Then, he prepared a packed lunch for Shiv and himself. He tried to get creative with it, sometimes. Lunchmeat sandwiches in a ziplock weren’t gonna cut it.

The packed lunches were, arguably, the first point of contention for him and Shiv. When Shiv emerged from the hall and into the kitchen when Tom was filling two brown paper bags for the first time, she mumbled, “What the fuck is this?” She wasn’t a morning person.

“I made us lunch.”

“Don’t tell me I’ve made a domestic of you.”

“It’ll cut down like 20 minutes of bullshit from our lunch hour. It’s a convenience thing.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Shiv said once. Twice. Multiple times thereafter.

“I want to,” Tom explained each time.

For a while, Shiv took the lunches to work. Then she didn’t, and that wasn’t really a big deal.

On a Tuesday night in February, when they were getting into bed, Tom reminded Shiv, “Hey, keep next Thursday night open. We’ve got dinner reservations.”

Shiv raised a brow, surprised. “Oh yeah? Are we meeting someone?”

“No. Just us.”

“What for?”

“It’s Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh, right.” She sat at the edge of the bed with her back facing Tom. She rubbed lotion all over her legs, which was something Tom didn’t like. It got the sheets sticky. “Okay. Where at?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Shiv gave him a look over her shoulder. “No, seriously. Where?”

Tom evened out his expression, letting a handful of seconds pass. She wasn’t going to budge. “Bergen Hill.”

“Is that wise?”

“Would it not be?”

Shiv exhaled audibly. She sat cross-legged on the bed then, maneuvering herself to face him. “Tom, is that the kind of vibe you want on that kind of day. If we go there, we’re gonna be neck-deep in yuppie fucks and senators with their 19-year-old sugar babies. Think about it.”

He canceled the reservation and they ordered dinner in that night instead.

Actually, he was remembering things all wrong. Forget that last part. That’s not how it really was. It wasn’t sad brown bags and aborted dinner dates. Besides, these were all food-related disagreements. What the fuck? He was rationalizing, maybe. He was rationalizing, because there was a thing.

See, there was Greg. Greg, the closest thing to an anthropomorphized baby giraffe you could find on this side of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge probably. By no means was it ever a courtship, to be clear. Nothing Tom-and-Greg was ever on purpose. Whereas Tom-and-Shiv was no accident. He was very intentional in the way that he fit himself into Shiv's world. He had it down to a science. He wined and dined alongside her at galas and get-togethers. He bumped elbows with her coworkers’ and assistants’ spouses. On the days Shiv came home drained and tense, he rubbed her back and kneaded her shoulders. She sighed like a hot air balloon touching ground. Not really graceful. Almost violent. He loved her. They loved each other.

When he and Shiv first got together, it was no secret to anybody. Their second date was christened by Roman somehow following them to dinner and grinding his bare ass cheeks against the window of the restaurant half-way through their second course. 

Shiv didn’t even flinch. “He’s doing the thing, isn’t he.”

“If by ‘thing’ you mean making Charmin out of a glass window pane, then yes.”

She flipped Roman off and finished the last of her Niçoise salad. 

Call him a romantic, but he felt phenomenal sitting at a candlelit dinner with Shiv - with or without her brother’s ass present. He liked the idea of being seen with her. He couldn’t get enough of it: entering a room arm-in-arm with her, getting a morning jog in with her, walking down the street with her. Making it known that he was coupled and attached came with an overwhelming sense of power and relief. Everybody back the fuck up, because this is who I am, he wanted to yell from the fucking rooftops. That was who he was. Not anything else.

Poking and prodding at Greg was just a little bit of fun. And Greg was hungry for it. He was hungry in a way that Shiv never was, so Tom fed him. He fed him guidance, fine dining, drinks, attention. It started with Tom getting him shoes, which was a nothing gesture, by the way. It was less of a gesture and more of a dire necessity.

When the sun was coming down and it was closing time, Tom felt someone behind him on his way out. It was Greg.

"Tom, hey. I wanted to--"

"Greg," Tom drawled. He eyed the shiny new Oxfords on Greg’s feet. "Aren’t we looking Wall Street-ready.”

"Yeah, thanks for - Actually, that's what I wanted to ask about, before I go home. Are these rentals or something? I don't want anybody to, like, tackle me in the lobby for stealing. Should I turn them in somewhere or give them back to Lucinda or?"

Tom's impulses undulated between shaking Greg by the shoulders or stuffing him in a bag and taking him home. Tom didn't know what to do with him or himself. He said, "They're yours."

"Are you..." Greg craned his neck downward, leveling his eye line with Tom’s. "Wait, are you serious?"

"I'm serious. Consider me the Stanley Tucci to your Anne Hathaway. Go, be beautiful!" Tom continued off towards the elevators, effectively ending the conversation and his workday. Not too shabby for his first day at the top of Parks & Cruises.

Greg wouldn’t last the week, he thought. The guy might as well be smartly dressed when he gets kicked to the curb. 

As the weeks went on, he was proven wrong about two things. First, despite the promotion, his job was essentially the same as it was before. He was still flapping his wings furiously to stay abreast with the big birds. And he was still eating shit, although the shit piles were bigger and more putrescent than ever before. Secondly and relatedly, Tom was proven wrong about Greg. However, for legal reasons, he wasn't about to get into what Greg did to prove him wrong. Let the record at least show that it was nothing weird. Moving along.

The first time Tom took Greg to dinner, it was like a revelation. For once in a long while, Shiv canceling dinner plans on him was no problem at all. He was in too good of a place in his life to be down about it. He was getting married in the coming year. He was getting paid. He had his little buddy to thank for getting him out of what could have been a big fucking mess. And he had dinner reservations for two, ready to go. He was on top of the fucking world.

Greg got sick in the restroom at the club. Tom knew that because Greg reported upon his return: “I felt the songbird beak come back up through my throat.”

Tom bought him another shot. 

They took a cab to Tom’s place, because he knew the night would end the second Greg went away. He couldn’t have that.

Greg was so impressed by his condo. His eyes turned to saucers. He was impressed by everything. No one in Tom’s life was impressed by anything.

Tom loosened his tie and placed his jacket down on the back of a dining room chair. He would move it later. He turned to Greg who was still staring up at the ceiling. “So, this is the crash pad. Make yourself comfortable.”

Greg looked back at him, smiling in a queasy sort of way.

“Dude, you have no idea how stacked this kitchen is. Shiv barely touches it. C’mere, come on.”

Greg shambled over, looking so much like one of those windsock puppets with the faces and the arms that are usually posted up in front of car dealerships.

Tom popped open a row of cabinets full of snacks.

“Oh my god, man. Wow. You’ve got everything they have at Costco. Your kitchen is like - you live in a Costco, man.”

He tossed Greg a bag of chips and opened two beers. “You’ve gotta eat something. Shiv doesn’t. It’ll settle your stomach.”

“Maybe that’s why Shiv’s like that all the time. I get - I get cranky when I don't eat too.” He soundly crunched on chips. He draped his long arms and upper body across the island counter. “I love Shiv. She’s the best.”

“Yeah, me too. Love her.” He slid the second beer towards Greg whose face lit up at the offer.

“Where is she?”

Tom settled himself across from Greg, both of them huddled together like at dinner. “She went to DC. She’ll be there overnight. Working.”

"I can't believe you guys can just - can just get on a helicopter and go places. Like it's nothing. Like you can just hop over to China for a day, no problem."

"It's been done before."

Slouched forward, Greg's floppy hair was in his face. His eyes flit upwards at Tom. His eyes were blue, like Shiv’s. But he was nothing like Shiv. Shiv was like the ocean. And Greg was something else. Thinking about it put a knot in the center of Tom’s chest. It dissolved in a burst of heat that reached his shoulders.

Tom extended his arm out. He swept the hair out of Greg’s face delicately, like dragging a finger through sand. His hand lingered there. Greg’s expression shifted and went slack. Tom expected him to say something. He didn’t want him to.

He drew his hand back. He chuckled to himself. “Greg, you huge fucking asshole.”

“What?”

“I’m gonna sleep.” He stood back, gripping the sides of the counter tightly. Sometimes, with the wrong combination of things, he was liable to do weird shit when he was drunk. He trotted himself down the hall and added, “You can stay. Upstairs and stuff.”

From the kitchen, Greg said, “Okay. Okay.”

The next morning, Shiv came home and the news of Kendall’s failed insurrection rolled in. The night was over.

Did he mention that his relationship with Shiv was going very well? Things were getting hot and heavy with Gil's campaign, but she took the time to spend a weekend or two in town per month. Sometimes they even spent Sundays in.

There was a moment. Shiv stood at the floor length window in the living room on a grey Sunday morning. She looked so small with her shoulders hunched and arms crossed in front of her. She was watching the fog swallow up buildings and lamp posts -- or maybe she was deep in thought, unseeing.

Tom came up behind her quietly, close enough to feel her body warmth and smell the scent of her hair. He nuzzled the side of his face up against the top of her head, a tiny nudge. She yielded. Her arms unraveled and she pressed her back against Tom's chest. Tom put his arms around her, folding around her like putty. Like clay against a mold. She breathed in beneath him.

With Shiv, he often felt like there was an unwritten script he needed to fulfill. He wanted to meet his marks and say his lines, because if he did, the rest will follow: money, respect, love. It had gotten him this far.

Sometimes it didn’t feel like that at all. Sometimes, all there was was tenderness and soft things. This moment felt like one of those times. He thought, if he tried hard enough and pushed himself to be in the shape that he imagined for himself, it could be like this always.

But he was getting so tired.

Tom had an aunt on his father's side who liked to dress him up when he was little. In his childhood, the majority of the clothes he wore were hand-picked by his aunt and his aunt erred on this side of ostentatious. She didn't have any children of her own, so she funneled much of her attention and eccentricities towards Tom. On special occasions, she dressed him in polka-dotted bow ties, ruffled shirt tops, or loudly checker-patterned suit ensembles. There was photo evidence tucked away somewhere in his dad's dresser drawers. Based on his expressions in the photos, little Tom couldn't get enough of it.

He put a stop to it by his preteen years. He remembered a time in his life when he exclusively wore blacks, greys, or blues, which he considered an aggressive move against the tyranny of his aunt and a win for his own journey into manhood. He was a sulky, sullen 12-year-old, if one could believe it. He withdrew from his aunt and refused to accompany her on shopping trips until she traded in shopping for chemotherapy. She passed away a little after Tom turned 15 -- old enough to regret it but too young to know how to make amends.

He thought of her while he sat behind his desk, watching Greg walk by with the hem of his slacks flapping a little too high above his ankle. Tom was tall. Short mattresses and the odd low doorway never let him forget that. But standing next to Greg made him feel like a racehorse jockey at a Knicks game. He imagined Greg rooting around in the bargain bin for the longest pair of pants he could find and just going with it. 

Tom peeked his head out of his office and called out to him. Greg turned on his heel. He greeted him with a genuine smile these days. _Careful, Greg._

Gathered in his office, Tom leaned back against his desk. He held a pregnant pause, long enough to watch Greg fidget. Satisfied, he mused aloud, "We're kind of the dream team, aren't we?"

"Are we? Are people - has someone said that about us?"

"I'm saying that."

"Oh. Okay, sure."

"I think it's only right that we look the part." Suddenly, Tom felt kind of weird about what he was about to propose. He didn't let it on. Arms crossed, he stepped towards the window. He turned his head to Greg. "How about I take us shopping? Tonight, I mean."

Greg grinned in response. A tentative grin, because he still didn’t fully trust him. He was right not to. Boldly, he said, “I owe you dinner.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you do.” Tom slapped him over the shoulder. "I've got plans for you, big guy. I'm gonna make you look so pretty."

Wildly enough, Greg seemed to be into that. He shrugged, eyes bright. "Do your worst."

In all honesty, Tom liked looking at him. It wasn't weird. He liked looking at the aurora borealis and he liked looking at certain people. He wasn't being weird. Greg had no right to look that good in a slim fit suit is all.

In the new year, wedding planning put Tom in a whirlwind. When it came time for his bachelor party, he was determined to enjoy it. Prague (i.e. Roman) fell through and they found themselves in a club in the bowels of an abandoned railroad tunnel or some shit. Whatever. Tom was flexible. Shiv gave him an ambiguous hall pass and he wasn’t going to waste it.

Greg fluttered around him like a tall, apprehensive butterfly. “There's areas, right? Neutral areas in terms of it not being compulsory, y'know, to do sex stuff?”

Eventually, Tom sped off to distance himself from the group. He wasn’t there to hang out with any of the guys. He was there to fuck, by any means necessary. Or maybe not like that. That sounded a little desperate and aggressive. Correction: he was there to meet a girl who would agree to have a sexual experience with him, probably a handy job at the most.

“Tom, hold on!”

He stopped and turned around. Greg crashed into him with his gangly excess of limbs tangled all over.

“Sorry, sorry.” He stepped back into a respectable distance from Tom. Flustered, he tucked his floppy hair behind his ear. “Shouldn’t we enforce, like, hourly check-ins? This is kind of a seedy place with hard drugs? Maybe a buddy system is a good idea. I can take Kendall and you can take Roman - and, um, Connor can—”

Tom took him by the shoulders. “I acknowledge your suggestions and immediately reject them. Loosen up, rimjob! It’s a party. Enjoy it! That’s my only request for you tonight.”

Sure enough, Greg later put him to shame with the degree of cutting loose he did. Tom walked in to watch him do three fat lines of coke. He came up from it looking like he just t-boned a school bus at 90 mph. Tom was impressed.

Kendall took off, but Tom gravitated closer to heckle Greg. He couldn’t help himself.

Greg clutched at his heart, jaw slack and eyes imploring. “Tom, fuck. Oh, fuck.”

“Well?”

He said, “Jesus, oh god. I think I wanna break something.” Which was an odd and alarming thing to say.

Tom scanned the room, genuinely concerned by the possibility of one of his party guests fucking trashing this place by the end of the night. He wouldn't put it past them. His thoughts were cut short when Greg, with a hideously strong grip, grabbed him by the lapels and lunged at his mouth. Contact high, Tom surged into the heat of Greg’s mouth. He swore Greg lifted him off his feet, that coked-out Grandmother Willow motherfucker.

Greg kissed him sloppily, teeth clanking against Tom’s. The high hit Tom like a thunderbolt. Tom let his tongue slide against Greg’s, struck by how he almost forgot what that felt like.

Viciously, they broke apart, breathing each other’s air. The sounds of the club rushed back into Tom’s ears, the rest of his senses following.

Tom shoved Greg into the concrete wall behind him. “Get the fuck off me, you repressed piece of shit.”

Greg slouched against the wall, eyes wide. His lips were wet, glistening in the Edison lights, and Tom thought of how he did that to him. Except, he didn’t.

“This didn’t happen,” Tom decided. Greg was high. He smoothed out the front of his suit jacket and straightened out the lines in his face. He laughed. “Fucking get over yourself.”

He went to get his dick sucked by a gorgeous, sexy woman and maybe tried a new and astoundingly practical sex act involving swallowing his own come. That was his bachelor party. Cool.

He knew what he was. Or rather, he had an inkling of an idea as to what he might be, but he knew that it wasn’t good for him. So he decided not to be.

Besides, if his life was any testament, he could be anything he wanted, as long as he tried hard enough. By that belief, he got himself out of Minnesota. He got himself to where he is now. He was proving it every day, wasn’t he?

When the dirty slush shrank away in the streets and the cloudless days grew more frequent, Tom started to feel hopeful about an early Spring.

And just like any other animal attuned to the change in seasons, he felt keyed up. Frustrated, skin buzzing like he needed to keep moving. He blamed it on the stress of wedding planning. He blamed it on Gil Eavis who was effectively hoarding his wife-to-be. He blamed it on anything other than Greg’s hands or the long expanse of his neck. At inopportune times, Tom remembered the pinch of teeth against his bottom lip when Greg kissed him. He felt a flare of heat along his back, craving more.

God, fuck off.

He was going to address this head-on. If he didn't, he knew that he would go home to another shame-ridden masturbation session where he didn't think about long legs and soft floppy hair. He was on the cusp of his wedding day, for God's sake. He had self-control. And he had control control.

Tom invited Greg to dinner at his place, because they were going to have a frank and honest conversation unbefitting of a public place. Greg volunteered to pick food up from a takeout dim sum place he knew. Tom questioned whether such a thing existed or should exist at all. Greg explained that the owner was “cool” and “got him out of a bind” sometime earlier in the year, which wasn’t entirely a ringing endorsement on the quality of the food. Tom said, "Okay, great."

That night, Greg looked at Mondale while they set the table. The dog sat flat on his stomach, panting in their direction. "Mondale's so quiet all the time.”

"Yeah, he's a good one."

"He just stays fenced in like that, 24/7?"

"Shiv doesn't like him getting all over the furniture. This big boy sheds like a motherfucker. Don't you, Mondale? We've got a dog walker that takes him out pretty much every day, but most of the time, he stays in there." Tom had Mondale longer than he had known Shiv, which was a strange thought. Shiv wasn't a dog person, but they willfully coexisted.

"How does he feel about it though?" Greg asked, a genuine question.

"You know, Greg, I never asked him. But he doesn't seem to mind, don't you think?"

He hummed quietly in response, neither a yes or a no. It was easy to forget that Greg and Shiv were related, but sometimes there was a glint of something in Greg's expression that was patently characteristic of a Roy. Tom could never decipher it.

The food was mostly edible, to say the least. They shared a cabernet afterwards, because Tom felt like he needed to compensate. He regretted it after the second glass. He felt the beginnings of indigestion trickling in, but then he realized he was nervously skirting around what he wanted to say. So he said it, or the beginning of it. "I'm getting married in three weeks."

"That’s right, yeah. That must be exciting."

Tom waited. He let the silence settle around them. "And we're good, right?"

The side of Greg's mouth went up, an aborted grimace. “You know,” he started, not looking Tom in the eyes. Tom gave him time to measure his words very carefully. “You know I’d never do anything to hurt you or Shiv.”

He nodded. “If you did, I’d of course destroy you.”

“Yeah, okay. That’s - that’s fine, I guess. I know that I shouldn't have--” Wisely, he didn't finish his sentence. Then he looked up. “I just want you to know, I’d do anything to make things right. For you and Shiv.”

“Good.” That was enough for him. Tom sought closure and that was what he got. He needed to get his head on straight, because he was getting married. He was going to put this part of himself behind him.

"But if you ever want to talk about--"

"Uh huh. Thanks, Greg. Good talk."

Three weeks later, Greg attempted to make good with his promise to make things right when he accosted him mid-jog on the morning of his wedding day and Tom beat him into the snow and ran away. It wasn’t a shining moment in the history books of Tom Wambsgans. But honestly, shut the fuck up, Greg.

In March, he got married. He had a _wife_. He traded vows before the watchful eyes of family, friends, and God himself.

It was a traditional wedding for an increasingly non-traditional couple.

“So. So, what you're saying is, she gave you permission? To cheat on her?”

Tom invited Greg out for drinks when he returned from the Hamptons. He had a lot to update him on, clearly.

“No, Greg. Open up your little puritanical dowry-bearing brain for, like, one second. Be here with me in the 21st century. It’s a standing arrangement of non-exclusivity.”

“What does that even mean? Those are just a bunch of words.”

“It means,” Tom said. “The world is our oyster. We can go to strip clubs or hook up with whomever we want, guilt-free.”

He squinted at him from across the table. “You - you mean the royal ‘we’?”

“I mean ‘me and Shiv’. For the love of God, keep up. But I’m of course inviting you. I’ve invited you. The hunt is on for us. Full speed ahead.”

“Okay. So, are you - you’re gonna do that thing? Like, scope for chicks or whatever?”

Tom scoffed at the phrasing, although that was exactly what he planned to do for the night. This was his chance to be the guy he wanted to be. He thought maybe he could help Greg too. They could be in this together.

“Because.” Greg tucked his hair behind his ear. He looked guilty. His eyes darted from left to right. He was about to disappoint Tom. “Because I don’t want, uh - I mean, I really like hanging out. With - with you. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think I can partake. In that.”

“What are you saying? Are you seeing someone?”

“No, of course not! It’s just—“ Greg shrank in his seat. “That’s not - that’s not what I’m interested in.”

“Agh, Greg.” Tom winced. "Like, at all? What’s your problem?"

The corner of Greg’s mouth jerked upward. He laughed inwardly, self-effacing. “I don’t think you really want me to tell you.”

Tom knew. He really did, but he didn't want to. He dared Greg to say it. Admit a weakness.

Greg wasn’t looking at Tom. He was backed up into a corner and Tom wanted him to do something. Anything. He looked like he was about to leave. 

Greg gave him an honest answer. He said quietly, “You could really crush me, you know.”

Tom blinked. Blandly, he said, “Then leave.”

“You know I can’t.” Greg stood and walked out.

He felt the tides shifting. Everything was different -- at work and at home. He saw Greg less and Shiv more. Hell, he saw all the Roys more often at work than ever before with the buzz surrounding the Pierce buy-out.

The retreat in Hungary came as a welcome respite at first, then it really wasn’t. There was bad energy looming over the group and Shiv needled him for details over text message before they even took off.

Tom was genuinely surprised to see Greg onboard the jet. He did his best to ignore him the whole way there. He wasn’t sure where they stood with each other. Lately, Greg was too busy to hang out. Allegedly busy with setting up his new place that Kendall was lending him or whatever. Tom wondered, but not very hard about it.

It was all the more surprising that Greg told him about his meeting with the biographer. It was a tasty morsel indeed and it fell into Tom's lap so neatly. Tom really could crush him, and he truly considered it. Perhaps it was time.

In full hunting regalia atop a scaffolding in the badlands of freaking Hungary, Tom thought it over. A runt of a boar squealed and kicked up dirt below him. The little boar stumbled over one of its brethren’s bleeding corpses, bodily slamming itself into a ditch beside the path. Having lost its footing, it bore its belly to the sky and wriggled uselessly.

Amidst the clamor and cacophony, he heard Ray holler, “Get him! Tom, he’s right there, get him!”

He felt the trigger resist against his finger. He held his breath.

Pop. The boar was shot.

“Ho, ho. Gotcha, motherfucker,” Roman whooped. 

It wasn’t Tom’s kill.

The morning after, he sat beside Greg, the two of them relegated to the loser table. They were losers together and Tom found an odd solace in that. Greg thanked him under his breath and Tom reached over to put a hand over his, wanting to reassure and comfort him the way that Tom wanted reassurance and comfort for himself. They ate in silence.

After breakfast, Greg followed Tom to his room wordlessly, and Tom allowed it.

He shut the giant French doors to his giant Victorian/Hungarian/whatever quarters. Greg stood in the middle of the room with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slanted low. He looked like he was about to say something.

Tom raised a finger. "Don't."

Greg's brows rose in a question.

Tom eyed the intricate corners and nooks of the room. All night and all morning, he weighed the likelihood of each of their rooms being bugged. It wasn't above Logan to do something like that. Gathering blackmail material was exactly in Logan's wheelhouse, especially if it involved family. Especially if it involved Tom, the inferior spouse to his bread-winning daughter.

Despite himself and despite everything in the whole goddamn world, he stood in front of Greg and they just looked at each other. What was bathed in warm tones the day before was now tinted in a cold blue. Snow covered the grounds outside and it continued to fall, floating down in meager flakes like ash from a burning building. Greg looked like he was about to break. His head was bowed low, but his eyes held Tom's gaze.

Tom reached out to him and touched the right side of his face, wanting to hold him together. His heart pounded in his chest and blood rushed against his ears. He was afraid somebody would hear his heartbeat from the hall. Then he felt Greg sigh and lean into the touch, and he didn't care anymore.

Greg blanketed Tom's hand with his own. It felt much like being held or cradled. He said faintly, "Please."

Tom shifted his hold. He dragged the flat of his thumb along Greg's bottom lip. Greg's eyes fluttered shut. A rush of breath warmed his thumb, then Greg moved to take the tip of Tom's thumb between his lips gently.

That tiny point of soft pressure shot warmth along Tom's chest and down to the pit of his stomach and into his groin. The feeling of want was so sharp. Tom felt like he couldn't fit air into his lungs anymore. He pulled his hand away from Greg, dizzy with it. He felt like he was standing on a ledge at knifepoint.

Tom created fair distance between him and Greg, until he felt like he could breathe again. "I can't. I really can't. Not here."

"Tom," Greg said, the name coming out like a nonsense sound or some sort of profanity.

"Go, just-- Go."

When Greg left and shut the door behind him, Tom sat on the edge of the bed, breathing in and breathing out.

When they got back to New York and to the offices, everything was as before. But he carried with him a heavy tension in his chest that wasn't there before the weekend. It wasn't just the Pierce deal or the humiliating retreat or the thing with Greg. He felt like things were starting to crack apart. Shiv slept with someone else while he was gone. He didn't really want to know.

“Maybe I do want to know," Tom said to Shiv in the dark. They were both in bed, Tom on his back and Shiv facing the wall. The lights were out. He was feeling honest, at the time. He wondered how far the feeling would take him.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s better for us if we don’t." She turned onto her back. "Like how I don’t ask about who you’re with when you go out after work.”

He kept his voice neutral. “I’m with Greg, pretty much every time.” That much was true.

“So, there’s nobody for you?” Shiv asked, incredulous. She rolled over onto her side to face Tom. “There’s been no one else for you at all?”

Tom turned his head to look her in the eyes. “No one.”

In the dark, he could see the shape of Shiv’s frown. The thing about Shiv was that, if she wanted to, she could see past any lie. A part of Tom wanted her to know all of it. Maybe she already did. He turned away.

She said so quietly that Tom wasn’t sure he really heard: “I worry about you, sometimes.”

He held in a breath, counted to ten. He remembered Logan in his ear, spitting venom at him in Hungary about grandchildren. “Or are you shooting blanks?” Logan had asked. Tom actually really, really didn't want to talk about it.

At work, just in the corner of his peripheral vision, he noticed Greg trying to meet eyes with him from across a conference table or in the halls. Tom ignored the lingering glances. That went on for a week or so, then he rarely saw Greg at all.

Then the protesters gathered on the streets and Tom probably had a Neo-Nazi as a news anchor. And then a lot of things happened at once. A lot of things were said and a lot of things were thrown. Someone was dead down the hall and Gregory Hirsch was blackmailing him. All things considered, it wasn't that bad of a day. He felt lighter maybe. Just a little.

Tom interpreted Greg's negotiation of terms as Greg washing his hands of him, which was fine. Greg was done with him. Tom could also be done with him. Tom could also assign Greg as his assistant for the whole of Argestes. That was exactly what he did.

Greg was the ideal assistant because, for one thing, he got the job done. And another, if Greg should ever get separated from him, Tom could single him out in a sea of people immediately, no problem. As long as everyone in that crowd was standing. Tom weaved through said crowd after the bullshit keynote speech let out. Dinner was fast approaching.

"Hey, hey," Tom said. "You going to the thing at the place for drinks tonight?"

Greg shook his head. "Oh, no. I was hoping to get some downtime, turn in early. You know, recharge the ol' batteries."

They backed into an alcove protected from the upstream rush of people. "Nonsense. C'mon, Shiv's not here. We can be each other’s little daties. Come with me and we can make a night of it."

"I mean, if - if." Greg tucked his hair behind his ear. He smiled, nodding. "Yeah. We can hang out."

"Attaboy." They were going to go out for drinks as old friends. He thought maybe he would make time with some ladies too. Make some moves and come home with raunchy, sexy tales to regale to Shiv. If Greg was offended by that, then that wasn't Tom's problem.

Ultimately, it ended up being Tom's problem, because Shiv showed up out of the blue and made things weird. And Greg made things weirder by coming up behind Tom and tapping him on the shoulder. Greg said in a rush of words, "Hey, can I talk to you in private for a-- Fuck. Oh my god, it's Shiv. Hey, Shiv!"

"Hey, Greg." Shiv paused and narrowed her eyes at him. She stepped closer to Greg and looked him in the eyes. She concluded, "Holy shit. You're high, aren't you."

"What? No, no. I was just, um--" He slid a hand through his hair, disheveling it thoroughly. "I was just doing some coke with, uh, Eduard Asgarov. Y'know, as one does at this kind of thing."

Tom and Shiv both sounded out with a combination of “oh my god” and "Greg, what the fuck."

“Anyway, I should, yeah. I should let you two--“

“Yeah, I think we were about ready to take off,” Shiv supplied. “Tom?”

“Uh huh. Yeah, I’ll catch up with you outside, hun.” Tom waited until Shiv was out of earshot before he hissed at Greg, “What the hell is going on with you?”

“I thought we could, uh, maybe talk. But now that Shiv’s here, you and me talking is off the table. Like, there’s no way we can talk now, whatsoever.”

Tom tried not to understand. “Get some rest, Greg. I’ll see you in the AM.”

Things escalated very quickly, and not in a good way. Tom kind of felt like everything was on fire. Shiv barely slept, which meant Tom barely slept. The few times she voluntarily came to bed, she tossed, turned, and checked her phone all night. At work, Logan yelled and everybody scrambled, Tom included. That was what the day-to-day looked like.

And yet, from what Tom could tell from afar, Greg thrived on his own. In his own office with his own projects. This time, he and Greg were done for sure. Tom showed up at Greg's apartment to let him know how done they were. When he got there, Greg had people over and a new haircut, and he clearly didn't want Tom there. Which is precisely why he stayed the night.

He charmed the guests a little. He ribbed at Greg a little. After everyone said their goodbyes and finally departed, Tom followed Greg around the apartment in an intimidating way. He watched him clean up in utter silence.

"You're gonna be like this the whole night?" Greg asked while he drained half-empty beer bottles down the sink.

"Yep."

"You're actually gonna, like, sleep here and stuff?"

"Yep. I'm taking the bed, by the way." And Greg slept on the floor. It was a ridiculously good night's rest.

Things were not fucking good in DC. The less said about it the better, thanks.

Inevitably, the cruise vacation was not the sort of vacation he envisioned, because he hadn't expected the part where private funding fell through and someone was about to get killed. He was at sea without a life vest.

There were times when Tom stood face to face with Shiv and felt like he was the shortest one in the room. Shiv looked him in the eyes and saw him for who he was. She was the most perceptive person he ever knew. So, when she was gentle with him and kind, he felt that maybe he really was worthy of it.

Of course he wanted to make it work. But tonight, he felt small. He was dwarfed by the proceedings of the day and the towering death knell. Deep down, he knew it was going to be him. They were going to hang him out to dry. 

He wondered, if he had 12 hours to live, what would he do? He had some ideas. It struck him like a bullet to the head when he realized that having a threesome with his wife wasn’t one of them.

Shiv took some things and left.

Tom was alone in the room. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being small. So, he went to the tallest person he knew. He knew where Greg’s cabin was because he took note of it earlier, even though he didn’t know why.

He knocked lightly, twice. Tom tried conjuring up what face he needed to put on, then failed. Greg opened the door.

"Is it just you here?" Tom asked, voice low.

Greg's mouth quirked upward. "Of course it's - yeah."

Tom pushed past Greg and entered the room. It was much smaller than the one he and Shiv had, but there was a queen-sized bed and an attached bathroom. The bed was still made, but the covers were rumpled and wrinkled all over. Greg was probably rolling around in it earlier.

"So," Greg said, tentatively. He shut and locked the door behind him. Greg was wearing the blue sweater from earlier in the day. Tom helped him pick that out when he first bought it. He knew exactly how soft it was. "What can I do for ya?" 

Tom didn't know what to say, but he knew that he wanted to be right where he was. His head spun and he felt cold, clammy. Feverish. He crowded up against Greg in the middle of the room, put two hands up against his chest, and pushed him.

Greg just took it, muttering an “Okay.” Then he looked him in the eyes and steadied himself. He looked concerned. "Are you - are you okay, Tom?"

Tom turned his head away. The look on Greg's face was a little bit too much. He said to him, "We're dead tomorrow, right?"

"Is that what you've heard?"

"Nobody has to say anything. It's on everyone's faces. It's what we did in--" Tom shut himself up. He took in a long breath, ready to fucking die. He looked at Greg, pinning him down with a mutinous look in his eyes. "Would you kiss me? If I asked you to. Would you?"

At that, Greg looked shattered. His shoulders came up to his ears and there was hurt in his eyes. "Don't you fucking - don't do that. To me. I can only take so much from you and - and I think this is it."

"I'm dead fucking serious."

"Then do it."

Tom closed the distance between the two of them. He placed a palm to the back of Greg's neck, brought him down closer to his own height, and kissed him. Greg wrapped his arms around Tom, kissing him back like the world was about to swallow them whole.

Tom felt Greg's tongue slide along his own, just like he remembered. The heat up and down his body caused him to pull back and breathe. When he caught his breath, he said with abject cruelty against Greg's mouth, "Fuck you."

"Are you sure this is okay?"

"No, it's fucking not okay. It's not, but." Tom buried a hand in Greg's hair and tugged, then sucked at the curve of his exposed neck. He ground himself against Greg's thigh, heat rolling through him in waves. "Fuck. You could fuck me, you know. Do you want to?"

Greg pulled back from him. He had the audacity to brush his thumb along Tom's cheekbone and search his eyes. Tom wanted to bite him for it. "Have you done this-- I mean, you're comfortable with - with that happening? In you?"

Tom pried himself from the rest of Greg and sat on the edge of the bed, already unbuttoning his shirt. "Relax about it, Greg. I've had things in my ass before." It was one of Shiv's better ideas.

"Fuck," Greg muttered. "Okay. Okay. Yeah, just uh. Hold on a second." Greg walked to his duffel bag on the dresser. He fished out a clear bottle of something, then tossed it onto the bed. He took off his sweater and worked at his pants.

"Um.” Tom picked the bottle up from where it fell. ”You just carry lube around, Greg? Are you some kind of sex monger? A cock curator, perhaps?"

Greg ran a hand through his hair. The gesture looked different with him standing there naked, body long and thin and his cock half hard. "I've had it since Argestes. Didn't use it." His eyes flit up, then away.

Tom didn't have time to feel guilty or even think about what came before. The rest happened quickly and Tom felt out of control the second Greg pushed his shoulders against the flat of the bed. Greg's hands were big, opening him up slowly and carefully. On his back, Tom felt pinned down by the weight of him and he wanted more. He kept pulling at Greg, closer and deeper. "Come on."

"Easy."

When Greg fucked him, Tom had his hand clasped over his own mouth the whole time. He knew he was being loud. They were both being incredibly fucking loud with Greg panting and Tom barely muffling his moans. The bedframe banged against the wall and Greg fucked into him at a rhythm that was entirely at odds with everything Tom knew about him. Tom listened to the sound of skin slapping against skin and he felt his cock twitch against Greg's stomach. The back of his thighs against Greg’s hips burned with friction and strain. He was probably going to die before the end of the night, which was a-okay with him.

Greg gave a high-pitched whine from the back of his throat, a new sound. He said, "I'm gonna come."

Tom found the warning to be silly. Maybe a little endearing. Under his grasp, he felt Greg's shoulders shake when he came. Greg gave a forceful sigh with each jolt of his shoulders. His breathing evened out and then, without preamble, pulled out of Tom.

Tom gritted out, "Ow, fuck."

"Sorry." Greg was definitely not sorry. He actually shoved two fingers back into Tom and fucked him with it. He hit a sensitive spot and Tom came all over himself with a shout. And that was that.

Distantly, he felt Greg wiping the mess off of Tom's stomach with a wash cloth. Tom wanted to snipe at him, but the impulse dissipated like antacid in a cup of water. _Fuck off_ , he thought to himself, which was enough. Eyes heavy, he sighed.

"You shouldn't fall asleep," Greg said, sounding close to him.

Tom hummed in agreement. He opened his eyes enough to see Greg lying next to him on his side, still naked. His legs were so long. He wished that he had spent time licking at every inch of him.

“What’s going to happen tomorrow?" Greg asked, maybe talking to himself. "What’re you gonna do when they choose us?”

“I don’t know." Tom shifted on his back. He felt his skin sticking to the sheets from all his sweat. With a wince, he propped himself up on his elbows. "I don't know. Shiv will vouch for me.”

Greg sat up too, moving up to sit against the headboard. For too long of a time after, he said, “Yeah. Yeah, I guess she will.”

“What, Greg?”

“I’m just-- I was just wondering, you know. And I'm, like, not saying this to, I don't know, accuse anyone of anything, but. If it was you and Shiv, instead of me and you, on the floor at the retreat. You know, that night? Would she have done for you what you did for me?”

Tom fished his clothes off the floor. “I don’t like what you’re suggesting.”

“I’m sorry. I know. I don't--" Greg sighed. "I'm worried you're gonna get hurt."

"Well, don't."

"I'm sorry," Greg said again, quietly.

Tom didn't have a game plan for afterwards. He didn't know how to proceed, and yet he felt like he had a clear head. For the first time, he felt fucking honest with himself. And with that honesty came some hard truths. He gave Shiv a piece of his mind on a sandy cove. For the first time, he knew who he was.

And the day after that, the world was blown apart with a press conference and a few measly copies.

**Author's Note:**

> edit (11/24/2020): it took me nine whole months to realize that tom puts his hand on greg's arm in hunting. not his hand. my degree from clown college is hereby REVOKED. but i will not edit this fic; you've read it as i had originally written it and i will brave the consequences of my inaccuracy. thanks for reading.


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